WorldLiterature@UCLA:

Translational Network Analysis in the Digital Humanities

David Kim, David Shepard, and Jun Wan

With contributions by David Leynov and Elaine Li

Past contributions by Viola Ardeni, Lourdes Arévalo, Nickolas de Carlo, C. Myles Chykerda, Wendy Kurtz, Amber Williams, and Harry Xie

Funded by the UCLA Office of Instructional Development and the Center for Digital Humanities

 

The aim of this collaborative digital project is to examine the concept of world literature, a concept that Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (1749-1832) has popularized since the beginning of the nineteenth century, with digital humanities methodology. To explore ways in which texts are translated across cultures, languages, and nations as exemplars of world literature, the project harnesses the power of social network analysis. It visualizes transnational networks of authors, translators, and scholars. In conjunction with conventional humanistic methods of scholarship, it goes far beyond what scholars and students are able to conceptualize alone.